Newfoundland & Labrador 2000 journey

Newfoundland & Labrador 2000

Herman Melville said in 1851: "Now when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes,… I do, not mean to have inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don't sleep of nights—do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing; --no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. … It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without having taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not….And as for going as cook,…somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls… No when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor,… True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. … What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? … Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. ….Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world in the world between paying and being paid. … Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck."

from Moby Dick; or, the Whale. Herman Melville. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851 read entire monologue

some rough notes here

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